kEiThZ
Superstar
Nice pics. They seem to have a very well developed and dense downtown for a mid-sized city.
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The Pittsburgh T
- Thread starter Brandon716
- Start date
Brandon716
Senior Member
Its because Pittsburgh wasn't a mid sized city before the mid 1900's, it was one of America's strongest economic industrial cities and throughout history was usually in the top 10 cities nationally.
But with the decline of American industry came the decline of Pittsburgh, which its only now recovering economically.
A matter of fact, unlike Detroit and other cities that are now seeing declines, Pittsburgh in effect suffered a massive sudden collapse of its steel industry. It went from a growth industry to a total bust within 10 years, and starting in the 1980's when the job market was losing tens of thousands of jobs every few months, the city converted to a service and high tech economy over the past 20-30 years.
Ironically, today Pittsburgh is quite a different story. Sites that used to be steel industry are now technology office parks, high end retail and theaters, or residential. Pittsburgh is one of America's leading cities in robotics, bio-tech research, has a large information technology sector, among other "new economy" jobs.
The current job recession in 2008 has seen hundreds of thousands of jobs shedded nationally. Cities like LA, Nashville, and Atlanta are heading toward 7 to 8% unemployment.
Pittsburgh is one of the few cities that have netted new jobs this year and hasn't suffered a job loss yet, and home prices are stable and still rising. Pittsburgh's local large banks like PNC and Mellon are some of the most financially secure in the current bank crisis.
Growth of jobs locally bucks nationwide trend
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/s_580675.html
And all of this from a city that chronically saw 20% unemployment rates in the 1980's as steel bottomed out and people left in droves. The city had a regional economic depression in the 1980's - forget recession - and today its doing better than the national average. Many metropolitan area communities had unemployment in the 25-30% range in the early 1980s as the ripple of steel's collapse.
Pittsburgh is bound to grow again.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/outside.jsp?survey=la
Pittsburgh as of June 2008 has an unemployment rate of 5.2% which is up from 4.4% in 2007, but well below the national average.
But with the decline of American industry came the decline of Pittsburgh, which its only now recovering economically.
A matter of fact, unlike Detroit and other cities that are now seeing declines, Pittsburgh in effect suffered a massive sudden collapse of its steel industry. It went from a growth industry to a total bust within 10 years, and starting in the 1980's when the job market was losing tens of thousands of jobs every few months, the city converted to a service and high tech economy over the past 20-30 years.
Ironically, today Pittsburgh is quite a different story. Sites that used to be steel industry are now technology office parks, high end retail and theaters, or residential. Pittsburgh is one of America's leading cities in robotics, bio-tech research, has a large information technology sector, among other "new economy" jobs.
The current job recession in 2008 has seen hundreds of thousands of jobs shedded nationally. Cities like LA, Nashville, and Atlanta are heading toward 7 to 8% unemployment.
Pittsburgh is one of the few cities that have netted new jobs this year and hasn't suffered a job loss yet, and home prices are stable and still rising. Pittsburgh's local large banks like PNC and Mellon are some of the most financially secure in the current bank crisis.
Growth of jobs locally bucks nationwide trend
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/business/s_580675.html
And all of this from a city that chronically saw 20% unemployment rates in the 1980's as steel bottomed out and people left in droves. The city had a regional economic depression in the 1980's - forget recession - and today its doing better than the national average. Many metropolitan area communities had unemployment in the 25-30% range in the early 1980s as the ripple of steel's collapse.
Pittsburgh is bound to grow again.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/outside.jsp?survey=la
Pittsburgh as of June 2008 has an unemployment rate of 5.2% which is up from 4.4% in 2007, but well below the national average.
kEiThZ
Superstar
This is why I dont always understand the criticisms of some cities. Our North American cities grew up during the era of the automobile and thats why we ended up with sprawl. European cities were largely based on the limits of travel by carriages or one's own feet. Hence the dense urban landscape over there. I was surprised to learn that Buckingham Palace itself was basically an apartment building with a number of royals staying there, or that 10 Downing Street was a town house.
It will take decades to get there....simply because outside of the few older cities (like Pittsburgh) most North Americans are used to suburban life and can't accept significantly higher densities. Its interesting to watch whats happening in Ottawa right now, a city on the cusp of a major growth spurt thats desperately trying to convince residents to densify and avoid sprawl.
It will take decades to get there....simply because outside of the few older cities (like Pittsburgh) most North Americans are used to suburban life and can't accept significantly higher densities. Its interesting to watch whats happening in Ottawa right now, a city on the cusp of a major growth spurt thats desperately trying to convince residents to densify and avoid sprawl.
unimaginative2
Senior Member
That's the theory, and I think it's a good theory. The problem is that virtually none of the transit city lines are planned for streets with long, pedestrian-friendly shopping streets. Eglinton, for example, is in a gigantic open field lined by occasional high-rise apartments and the backyards of houses. Jane is mostly houses on its south end, and a good length of it around Eglinton is also empty fields and parks. Same for Morningside: woodlots, ravines, parking lots, and backyards of houses. Finch West has a few plazas, but it's lined by houses, industrial buildings, and massive parks for most of its length. None of these are even designated as Avenues, so they can't even theoretically be redeveloped as a shopping strip in the future.
I spoke with a Toronto planner who pointed out that lining just Finch with shops like a downtown street would mean more retail space than exists in all of central Toronto.
As an aside, I've always found the idea absurd that somehow only streetcars with stops every block can serve pedestrian friendly neighbourhoods. If I can get off right in front of my destination, I'm not going to walk along the street and possibly patronize businesses. I bet an enormous amount of the walk-in traffic along strips like the Danforth are people who are walking to subway stations.
Long Island Mike
Senior Member
Pittsburgh: Rail Transit history and other observations...plus some about the TTC...
Brandon and everyone: I first visited Pittsburgh back in the late 70s and I got to like the City and wanted to find info about the Port Authority of Allegheny County which as we know operated PGH's transit system.
Back in the early 60s PGH had a trolley system operated by Pittsburgh Railways that operated 600 PCC cars on 41 routes. This and other local systems that were having money problems were acquired by PAT in the 60s-PR was taken over in 1964. PAT ended up favoring buses over trolley cars-so eventually lines were discontinued leaving only the South Hills Trolleys that ended up becoming the "T" LRT system.
PAT ended up constructing three busways-West,South(Paralleling the South Hills T line) and East-I am most familiar with this one - the Martin Luther King,Jr. East Busway was constructed using space from two of four tracks of the W end of the 353 mile long Philadelphia-Pittsburgh Main Line (Former PRR-PC-CR now Norfolk Southern-) between PGH Penn Station and Wilkinsburg. I rode Amtrak regularly between 1973-1988 between New York and Chicago and I saw changes along the rail lines thru PGH.
For PAT info: www.portauthority.org/ A history of PAT page is there.
Another PGH LRT site I found with pics is:
http://web.presby.edu/~jtbell/transit/Pittsburgh/LightRail/
I also found a group of three books on Pittsburgh Railways' history-the
author is Ronald L. Beal-they are pricey but from the outline have plenty of interesting topics on PGH's trolley history.
www.pittsburghstreetcars.com/
Pittsburgh had a interesting commuter rail history-PAT ran a service between Pittsburgh and Versailles in the Monongahela Valley that was discontinued in 1989. Another commuter service was P&LE's Pittsburgh-Beaver Falls single train service which ran into the mid 80s. Pittsburgh had trains operating on multiple PRR lines until the mid 60s time period. I did research on this subject at NRHS last year for:
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=151&t=28652 and look for posts by MACTRAXX-yours truly.
Another fascinating subject is Pittsburgh's Bridges-I found this site:
www.pghbridges.com/ Included is info on the two bridges the trolleys used: The old Smithfield Street Bridge until July 1985 when the new Subway opened up-and the LRT-using the former PRR Panhandle Bridge to access PGH and the new Subway.
In closing Pittsburgh has a fascinating rail transit heritage-and PAT's T lines keep it alive somewhat-but they have lost quite a bit over the past 50 years!
As for the TTC mentions-I agree that the Scarborough LRT should be replaced with a Subway extension to STC and the Sheppard Subway should go to STC also-with that LRT possibly running up towards Markham.
I will now say that Pittsburgh and Toronto are two cities that are very different from one another-transit being this topic.
Research and other observations by Long Island Mike
Brandon and everyone: I first visited Pittsburgh back in the late 70s and I got to like the City and wanted to find info about the Port Authority of Allegheny County which as we know operated PGH's transit system.
Back in the early 60s PGH had a trolley system operated by Pittsburgh Railways that operated 600 PCC cars on 41 routes. This and other local systems that were having money problems were acquired by PAT in the 60s-PR was taken over in 1964. PAT ended up favoring buses over trolley cars-so eventually lines were discontinued leaving only the South Hills Trolleys that ended up becoming the "T" LRT system.
PAT ended up constructing three busways-West,South(Paralleling the South Hills T line) and East-I am most familiar with this one - the Martin Luther King,Jr. East Busway was constructed using space from two of four tracks of the W end of the 353 mile long Philadelphia-Pittsburgh Main Line (Former PRR-PC-CR now Norfolk Southern-) between PGH Penn Station and Wilkinsburg. I rode Amtrak regularly between 1973-1988 between New York and Chicago and I saw changes along the rail lines thru PGH.
For PAT info: www.portauthority.org/ A history of PAT page is there.
Another PGH LRT site I found with pics is:
http://web.presby.edu/~jtbell/transit/Pittsburgh/LightRail/
I also found a group of three books on Pittsburgh Railways' history-the
author is Ronald L. Beal-they are pricey but from the outline have plenty of interesting topics on PGH's trolley history.
www.pittsburghstreetcars.com/
Pittsburgh had a interesting commuter rail history-PAT ran a service between Pittsburgh and Versailles in the Monongahela Valley that was discontinued in 1989. Another commuter service was P&LE's Pittsburgh-Beaver Falls single train service which ran into the mid 80s. Pittsburgh had trains operating on multiple PRR lines until the mid 60s time period. I did research on this subject at NRHS last year for:
http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=151&t=28652 and look for posts by MACTRAXX-yours truly.
Another fascinating subject is Pittsburgh's Bridges-I found this site:
www.pghbridges.com/ Included is info on the two bridges the trolleys used: The old Smithfield Street Bridge until July 1985 when the new Subway opened up-and the LRT-using the former PRR Panhandle Bridge to access PGH and the new Subway.
In closing Pittsburgh has a fascinating rail transit heritage-and PAT's T lines keep it alive somewhat-but they have lost quite a bit over the past 50 years!
As for the TTC mentions-I agree that the Scarborough LRT should be replaced with a Subway extension to STC and the Sheppard Subway should go to STC also-with that LRT possibly running up towards Markham.
I will now say that Pittsburgh and Toronto are two cities that are very different from one another-transit being this topic.
Research and other observations by Long Island Mike
Just_Chris
Active Member
"Toronto is growing like crazy"
The suburbs are growing like crazy. The city is not. The city population grew less than 1% from 2001-2006. There are tons of new condos yes, but very very little actual population growth.
The suburbs are growing like crazy. The city is not. The city population grew less than 1% from 2001-2006. There are tons of new condos yes, but very very little actual population growth.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
Even though metro Pittsburgh as a whole is rather sprawlly, the rivers and hills seem to have forced the development of European-esque pockets of density that could conceivably be well and easily served by transit lines. Overall, Pittsburgh seems like a redevelopment fantasyland...good bones.
Well, that's not accurate, either. Parts of the 416 are growing quickly, and parts of the 905 are stagnant (with many census tracts losing population).
Well, that's not accurate, either. Parts of the 416 are growing quickly, and parts of the 905 are stagnant (with many census tracts losing population).
Just_Chris
Active Member
It absolutely IS accurate. The city proper grew less than 1% (about 0.8%) from 2001-2006. Whoever told you it wasn't an accurate statement was lying to you.
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
As I said before, parts of the 416 are growing rapidly and parts of the 905 are stagnant; it simply is not accurate or useful to state that "the suburbs" are growing while "the city" is not, particularly when referring to the inherently local effects of transit lines.
adma
Superstar
Well, duh. We're talking about a maxed-out city core here. Technically, *none* of them are "growing like crazy" unless they're going Shenzhen on us.
Look at it this way: if Calgary were still circumscribed within pre-1980 boundaries, it wouldn't be "growing like crazy", either...
scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
For a maxed-out city core, Toronto has entire wards that are growing like crazy, and for suburbs that are growing like crazy, the 905 has dozens of census tracts that are losing population.
Brandon716
Senior Member
I like that.
"Its going Shenzhen on you!"
If Toronto would only scrap this Transit City thing, startup the DRL, Sheppard to Scarborough, and finally build Eglinton Cross-town we might have something to talk about.
Just_Chris
Active Member
It's obviously not "duh" to everyone here, is it?
kEiThZ
Superstar
I like that.
"Its going Shenzhen on you!"
If Toronto would only scrap this Transit City thing, startup the DRL, Sheppard to Scarborough, and finally build Eglinton Cross-town we might have something to talk about.
Sadly, that would leave nothing for Jane and Don Mills residents. And I am willing to bet that Transit City will be stalled by the impending federal election.